"I suppose you are feeling more comfortable, Hans," Yorke said as they cantered away from the camp on the following morning. "I don't know, Master Yorke; I was getting accustomed to the uniform, and these things feel a bit loose, as if I could shake myself out of them."
"I feel a good deal the same, Hans."
"And so you propose going to the Free State, master? I think it is just as well that Dirck Jansen is laid up with that wound you gave him; if he hadn't been, I am sure he would have mounted and ridden to join Steyn's men directly war was declared, and it would have been very bad if you had run against him."
"Very bad indeed, though I did not think of him at all. Yes, it is unfortunate now that I am known to so many of the Dutch farmers round Richmond and Brakpoort. I should say a good many of them will have joined the enemy. I don't suppose they ever noticed me very particularly, for I always kept out of the way as much as possible when they came, as I could not put up with their abuse of the English; still, some of them might recognize me. There is one thing, I always wore the shooting suits that I brought out from home; and these Dutch clothes I bought at Cape Town, when I knew the work I might have to do, have altered my appearance a good deal. I wish now that I had thought of buying[Pg 78] three or four of those wisps of long hair that one sees in the hairdressers' shops there; if I had fastened them inside my hat, so as to fall down all round on to my shoulders, it would have altered my appearance, just as cutting your hair short has changed you. I should have looked like a rough young Dutch farmer from one of the country districts."
They rode on a little farther without speaking, and then he went on suddenly:
"I have an idea, Hans—our horses' tails are about the same colour. We might very well cut off about nine inches; that would give plenty of hair for our purpose. The only trouble would be fastening it into one's hat. We will stop at farmhouses as we go along, and when we get to an English settler's I will borrow a needle and thread from his wife. I will take out the inside lining of the hat, sew the hair in all round, except just in front, and then sew the lining on to it. That will keep it all tight."
Hans laughed.
"It will make you look very much like what I was before I visited the barber. No one would recognize you."
The third house at which they stopped they found to be an English settler's. As they rode to the door, they were in the usual hospitable way asked to come in and have something to eat.
"I am English like yourself," Yorke said, "and am serving as an officer with the force at De Aar, and I am going scouting to gather news of any movement on the other side of the Orange River. I may cross and go farther, but as I have been living for some time near Richmond, I may run against some of the rebel Dutch who have gone to join them, so I want to disguise myself."
"Come in, sir; we will do anything we can. When I saw you riding up, I certainly took you both at first for Dutchmen, but I see now that you are far more clean and fresh-looking than they generally are."
"Have many Dutch joined them from the colony?"
[Pg 79]
"Not so many about here; but farther on they say a good many have gone from Colesberg and that district. But most of them are waiting for the Boer advance, then I think the greater portion of them will join; from all I hear, it is an arranged thing, and the Boers reckon confidently on being joined everywhere by their own people. I am going to start to-morrow for De Aar, and shall sell all my cattle there, for if the Boers come, they will be sure to carry them all off. I hear the commissariat are buying them up for the use of the troops, and are giving fair prices for them, so I shall be no loser by it; and I shall sell my horses to them also. I have not got many sheep, but what I have I shall get rid of, then we will shut up the house, put the best part of our belongings into a waggon, and travel down quietly to Port Elizabeth, and wait there till the business is over, and if we find it likely to last, we shall go home for a holiday. It is fifteen years since we came out here, and we have been talking of going to see the old folk for some time, so if I get a fair price for the animals, it would suit us very well."
They were now in the house, and after taking a cup of coffee and some cold meat and bread, Yorke explained what he wanted. The colonist's wife was much amused at the idea, and undertook at once to do the sewing. Armed with a large pair of scissors, Yorke cut off about ten inches of the horses' tails. While he had been doing this, the woman had cut the lining out from the hat. The horse-hair was then distributed equally round it, and she was about to begin sewing it in when her husband said: "Wait a bit, Jenny; I will put my glue-pot on the fire. The glue will hold the hair better than any amount of sewing, and if a bit happened to work out, it would look very awkward."
"That would be capital," Yorke said. "I had my doubts whether sewing would be sufficient, but there is no fear that glue will fail to hold."
Accordingly the glue was heated, and a band of it two inches wide laid on round the inside of the hat. Then the[Pg 80] hair was pressed into this, and the lining sewn in its place again. Yorke put on his hat, and, looking in a glass, joined in the hearty laughter of Hans and the colonist. The appearance of the hair was perfectly natural, as it fell on to the collar of his coat in thick masses.
"It is capital," the man said. "I am sure no one would suspect that it was not real, except that, if they looked into it, they might think it was coarser than usual; but it is just the way many of the Boers wear their hair, and it certainly changes your appearance altogether. Your face might be all the better for being a little more dirty, but it is sunburnt, and will pass very well; only, you will have to bear in mind never to take off your hat."
"I think I shall remember that," Yorke replied. "The Dutch farmers seldom do take off their hats even indoors."
"I don't think that even Dirck Jansen would recognize you, Master Yorke," Hans said, "after always seeing you in what you call your Norfolk jacket and short gray breeches and stockings. He would not know even your figure. You used to look slim, but in that rough coat, fitting so loosely, your big trousers, and high boots, you look different altogether. I am sure that if I had met you, without knowing that you had disguised yourself, I should not have recognized you."
"You would look all the better for having your eyebrows darkened a little," the woman said. "Your hair is much darker, and that would help to change your expression."
The farmer found a cork, and after burning it, darkened Yorke's eyebrows and eyelashes, thereby greatly altering the expression of his face.
"I will put that in my pocket," Yorke said, taking the cork, "then I can touch my eyebrows up from time to time as it wears off."
After many thanks to his host and hostess, he again mounted with Hans, and rode off, feeling confident now that he could mix with the Boers without fear of detection. Two[Pg 81] days were spent in following the river on the line that he had been directed to take, and questioning the Kaffirs, of whom several bands were found living in little huts on its banks. They had seen no parties of men, nor, although news travelled fast among the natives, had they heard of any large gathering. On arriving at Zoutpans Drift they saw four Boers on the other side, evidently placed there as patrols. Yorke did not hesitate, but went boldly across.
"Where do you come from?" one of the men asked in Dutch, entertaining no doubt whatever that he was a young Boer farmer come to join.
"Our farm is a few miles from Richmond. I hope we are in time for the fighting. Has it begun yet?"
"Not here, though there have been a few shots fired round Kimberley. But a big force is going down by Van Reenans Pass to help Joubert drive the Rooineks into the sea."
"That is just the job I should like to join in."
"Well, I expect you will be in time. By now, no doubt, they will have finished with the Rooineks at Dundee. Then they will wipe out those at Ladysmith, and after that it will be an easy job, for there are no soldiers to speak of at Maritzburg. We shall make an end of them all this time, and it will be Africa for the Africanders, and no English allowed here. Another party will be crossing at Bethulie in a day or two. All our people in that district are ready to join as soon as they do so; but there won't be any fighting there, for there are very few troops at Port Elizabeth, and I expect they will embark in their ships directly they hear that we are coming. What are they doing out your side?"
"Not much at present. I hear a talk that more troops are coming out; but it is a long way off, three weeks' voyage, I heard."
"As much as that?" the other said in surprise; "I thought England was close to the Cape. I am sorry to hear that, for I had made up my mind that after we had driven them out from here, we should go and take their country, just as they[Pg 82] have tried to take ours; there would be good pickings for us all."
"Grand pickings," Yorke agreed.
"Well," the other went on, "I suppose we can get ships. France and Russia and Germany are all going to join us, and will be glad enough to arrange with us to send ships if we undertake to do the fighting."
"No doubt they will be glad to do so," Yorke said, "Though I am ready to fight, I do not think I should care for the voyage. They say that people who go on board ships for the first time are always ill."
"Well, we shall manage it somehow," the other answered.
"No doubt; but I must be riding on. I shall go on to Bloemfontein, and I fancy I shall join the Natal force rather than the Colesberg one. I am reckoned a good shot in my district, and it is no use having a rifle and bandolier if one is not going to use them."
So saying he touched his horse with his heel and rode off. Hans had been talking with the others.
"Why have you cut your hair off?" one asked.
"Because it will save trouble," Hans replied, "and besides it is cooler, and we shall have it hotter down in Natal than it is here; my hat, too, was rather tight, and it makes a lot of difference getting rid of your hair. If we had gone through Richmond, I might have got a bigger hat there, and let my hair stay on. As it was, it was easier to cut it off and have done with it."
Yorke had told Hans to talk as much as possible, while he himself said no more than was necessary. No one could doubts for a moment that his follower was what he looked, and his being so would divert any suspicion from himself. They slept that night at Fauresmith. The little town was crowded with men who had come in in obedience to orders. After some difficulty they secured a room and then went out and mingled in the throng. It was easy to see that there was considerable difference of opinion among the men. Some[Pg 83] were noisy and boastful, but the majority were undoubtedly there against their will, and when these gathered quietly together angry words were spoken against Steyn, who had, without the consent of the great body of burghers, plunged the country into war and caused them to be dragged from their homes and families.
town
THE LITTLE TOWN WAS CROWDED WITH MEN.
"We have no quarrel whatever with Britain," one said, "and she has never interfered with us in the slightest. Englishmen have always been welcome among us. We have nothing to do with the Transvaal quarrel. Why shouldn't the Uitlanders have a vote, as our people have in Natal and Cape Colony? Kruger has been working for it for years, and if—as he says, and those fellows who are shouting over there think—we can drive all the British out, it is the Transvaal people who will have all the power. We know how Kruger's gang has piled up money by monopolies. If the British go, it is we who will have to pay the taxes, and if there is to be any change, I would rather a thousand times come under British rule than under the Transvaal."
"You are right, Friedrich," another said. "If they had not said I should be shot if I did not come with them I should not be here to-day. They have taken my son as well as me, and who is to look after the farm while I am away?"
"Besides," another put in, "if we drive the British out, who is going to keep stores? Where are we going to buy what we want? There is scarce a place that is not kept by an Uitlander. What do we know of such matters? Where are we going to buy the goods to fill the shops? Besides, it is not in our way. We are farmers and not shopkeepers. I consider it a bad business altogether, and there are many of us who would rather put a bullet into Steyn than into these Englishmen, who have done us no harm."
Yorke found that the commando was going on to Edenburg, then by train across the Orange River at Bethulie into Cape Colony, where, they were told, every Dutchman would join them, for, except in Colesberg and some other towns, there[Pg 84] were very few English in the district. He gathered that all the other commandos in the district were to move in the same direction, while those on the north and west were to go to Kimberley. There was no talk whatever of any large body going west. As darkness came on, the streets began to empty, some of the men going into houses where they had obtained lodging, but the majority, wrapping themselves up, law down by the side of their horses. Hans went into a store and bought some bread and cheese, for they had finished the things they had brought with them before they had crossed the river that morning.
"We will go back to-morrow the first thing," Yorke said when they had finished their meal in their room. "It is quite evident that they have no idea at present of any attack in force on De Aar. It will not do for us to cross at Zoutpans Drift; there would be no inventing a probable tale to account for our movements; and it will be a great waste of time to go down to Bethulie. There is the bridge near Colesberg, but that is a good bit out of our way, and very likely that will be guarded too. I was wrong not to have brought with me my English clothes, then I could have said that I was an English refugee from Bloemfontein, and there would have been no hindrance to our passing. As it is, I think we must make up our minds to swim the Orange River. As we came along the banks there were several places where the land sloped gradually down to the water's edge on both sides. It was the case two or three miles below the drift, and we will make for that point. We can follow the road for some distance without much risk of meeting anyone, for it is evident that the greater portion of the men have been commandeered, and the few who remain will have plenty to do on the farms. If we should have the bad luck to fall in with some small party, I can give out that I am carrying orders from the field cornet for the men at the drift to be very watchful, and if a British force is seen on the other side they are to ride off at once and bring the news here, and then telegraph[Pg 85] it to Bloemfontein. I do not know, by the way, whether that story would not pass us across the drift. I could say that the field cornet, whose name we luckily heard, said that we could do better service at present by crossing the drift and scouting on the other side than in going on, as there was not likely to be any fighting at present, especially as the train would certainly be so full at Edenburg that he would not be able to carry on his whole commando."
Hans nodded. "All right, Master Yorke, I would rather do that than swim the river, for I never swam a stroke in my life. I am told you can cross rivers like that by holding on by saddles or horses' tails, but I have no wish to try it."
"Well, we will start the first thing in the morning, before the Boers are about. They have not a very long march before them and are not to start till eight. We will be off at daylight."
Going downstairs he told the woman of the house that he would pay her at once as he had to be off early. The horses had been fastened up in a little yard at the back of the inn, and there would be no difficulty in getting them out. Matters turned out as Yorke had hoped. The town was still asleep when they started, and although they met two or three Boers riding at full gallop to join the commando on the march, these paid no attention to them. Fortunately, at the drift, the men who had spoken to them the evening before had been relieved by others.
"Who are you, and where are you going?" one of the men asked.
Hans as usual acted as spokesman. "We are going scouting on the other side. Field Cornet Hatjens said that the train from Edenburg would not be able to carry all his commando, and that some will stop at Fauresmith for another day or two. As we said we wanted to be doing something, he ordered us to ride here and scout towards the railway, and see if any trains with Rooineks were going north, and especially if guards are stationed along the line. I don't[Pg 86] suppose we shall find out much, but it will be something to do, and we shall have time, I expect, to join the others before they start. If we get any news it will be telegraphed from Fauresmith to Bloemfontein." Then, as if no further parley was necessary, they rode on into the water and were soon on the other side.
It was a long day's ride to De Aar, but they got there late in the evening, and Yorke went at once to the colonel's tent to report.
"Can I come in, sir?" he said as he reached the opening of the tent.
"Certainly, Harberton. Hullo!" he broke off as the light fell upon Yorke's face. "Why, what have you been doing to yourself? I recognized your voice at once, but if you had not spoken I certainly should not have known you."
Yorke took off his hat.
"A wig!" the colonel exclaimed. "Where on earth did you get hold of it?"
"It is horse-hair, sir," Yorke replied, handing him the hat to be examined. "I thought it possible that I might be recognized by some of the Dutch who knew me when I was at the farm, so I cut a good bit of hair off both of the horses' tails, and got an English colonist's wife to make the hat up as you see."
"An excellent plan," the colonel said, examining it. "Naturally, it is coarser than it ought to be, but many of the Boers have very coarse hair, and the difference would not be observed in a casual inspection. It would certainly pass excellently after dark."
"It passed well yesterday at Fauresmith."
"At Fauresmith!" the officer repeated in surprise.
"Yes, sir. Finding that I could obtain no intelligence of any kind this side of the river, we crossed at Zoutpans Drift and went into Fauresmith, which was full of Dutch, a commando having assembled there. We mingled with them two or three hours and no one paid the slightest attention to us."
[Pg 87]
"You have done well indeed; but before you tell me what news you have gathered, I will point out to you that no doubt these men were all bent on discussing the work upon which they were going to be engaged, and would scarce give a casual glance at a stranger, and that although your hair might pass unnoticed there among them, it would hardly be so were you entering any place where you might be observed with suspicious attention. I think that the idea of a wig is an excellent one, and I should advise you to write down at once to Major Mackintosh, and ask him to go to the cleverest hairdresser in Cape Town and get him to make a wig imitating the long hair worn by the Dutch. Say that it is of the utmost importance that it should be as indistinguishable from the real thing as possible, as your life might depend upon its being undetected. He had best send it up directed to me, as you might be away."
"I will do so, sir. I should not generally wear it, for most of the men I saw at Fauresmith had their hair quite as short as mine; many of them had almost a close crop. As we get farther north the chances of my meeting any of the men from round Richmond would grow smaller, so there would be no occasion to alter my appearance; and there would always be some danger of the wig going wrong. Still, I will certainly get one; it could be wrapped up very small, and if I should get into a mess, and they were hunting for me, it would change my appearance altogether if I could slip it on."
"It certainly would do so; but I do not think that you will be called upon to go in disguise when we once move on. We shall, of course, then have scouting parties ahead, and we shall get information from the Kaffirs, and sometimes, perhaps, from well-disposed colonists. And now, please tell me all about your journey, and what you have discovered.
"That is most satisfactory news—most satisfactory. This is the most important point at present. There can be no doubt that in a day or two all communication with Kimberley will be cut off, and this place will become the base of our[Pg 88] advance for its relief. An immense amount of stores must be collected here before we can move forward. No doubt small bodies of Boers will be hovering about, but they are not likely to make an attack; and indeed I doubt if any force could do so successfully. Still, it is a great thing not to be obliged to spend half our strength on erecting strong earth-works, and to feel that we can work in security. At the same time, I am sorry that they are evidently going to invade the colony south of the Orange River. From what I have heard, the Dutch population round Colesberg, Steynsburg, and Stormberg are likely to join them almost to a man. The country is mountainous, and it will be difficult to drive them out of it.
"Round Aliwal North a considerable portion of the population is British. They may be able to hold their own; but if they cannot do so, they are sure to suffer heavily at the hands of the Boers, who will certainly combine plunder with patriotism. Among them there are a considerable number of Irish and American Irish, Germans, French, and Hollanders, adventurers of the worst kind, whom high pay and the hope of plunder have attracted, together with a miscellaneous riff-raff of the lowest class from the mining centres. The country Boers will be rough and vindictive enough, you may be sure, but this foreign scum will be infinitely worse; still, I have no doubt some of the troops as they arrive will be sent on to Port Elizabeth, and will, we may hope, be able to make head against them.
"By the way, we had news yesterday that Penn Symons had defeated them at Dundee, though with heavy loss on our side; he himself is mortally wounded. General White doubts whether that force will be able to maintain itself, as the Boers are closing in all round him, and the line of railway from Ladysmith is already cut. The Boers have a tremendous advantage in being all mounted men, and, living as they will do on the country they pass through, they will be unencumbered by supply trains, and will move three feet to our one.[Pg 89] The more I see of it, the more I feel that we have a troublesome and difficult job on hand."
The letter to Major Mackintosh was at once written and sent off by the train starting that evening, together with one from the colonel, stating the information that he had gained—thanks to the daring and enterprise of Mr. Harberton, who had in disguise entered the Orange Free State and gathered the intelligence he now sent from the men of the Boer commando at Fauresmith.
Although Yorke had been absent but a few days, the changes at De Aar were wonderful. Never even in the days of the gold fever in California was so great a transformation effected in so short a time. De Aar had grown from a little village of some forty houses, two or three shops, a church and school, with a little camp, into a great military centre. Captain Mackenzie of the Royal Artillery was in charge of a separate camp, which grew daily. Here in a large kraal he had upwards of a thousand mules and as many horses, all of which had been broken in and trained for military service.
Not far away was the Army Service camp. Here were men capable of every kind of work that could be demanded—carpenters, wheelwrights, railway men, painters, plasterers, saddlers, and artificers of all sorts. Aided by Kaffirs working under their direction, camps and sheds were erected as if by magic, and in a couple of days a street of corrugated iron stores would spring into existence on the veldt. There was already a medical camp, with its Red Cross flag. The Yorkshire regiment had come up, and was under canvas on the other side of the railway. The Kaffir camp was also a canvas town, and here natives of many tribes, Basutos, blacks from Cape Town, mule-drivers and transport men, were clothed and fed. Breastworks had been erected by the troops and Kaffirs upon the hills around, and redoubts thrown up on the plains.
On the morning after Yorke's return the colonel said to him: "I do not see any work to which I can put you here,[Pg 90] Mr. Harberton. After what you have done I think you will be far more useful in scouting than in any other way. I have been thinking the matter over, and have come to the conclusion that you cannot do better than get some Kaffirs to act under you. I will give you an order on the head of their department to hand over a score of them to you. You can pick your men. They must, of course, be active and intelligent fellows; and although you speak a little of their language, it would be better to pick out some at any rate who understand English or Dutch. Your friend Grimstone, whose wife made your wig, has just come into camp with three or four hundred cattle and a number of horses and ponies. He is at present in the supply camp arranging the sale of his cattle. Some of his horses are too light for transport purposes, but they are, like the Basuto ponies, rough and hardy.
"Captain Mackenzie will no doubt buy all the animals suitable for his purpose, and I will walk across with you to his camp and get him to buy twenty ponies for your men. In this way you will be able to cover a considerable extent of ground, and give notice of any party of Boers who may ford the Orange River—for I hear that the water is sinking fast, and no doubt it can soon be crossed at many points besides the ordinary drifts. You would always be able to buy a sheep for the men, for although the English colonists are rapidly coming in, of course the Dutch are remaining. The men must carry ten pounds of flour apiece; and if they have plenty of mutton it will last them for a week."
Yorke was delighted with the offer, indeed nothing could have suited him better; and after going with the colonel and arranging for the Kaffirs and ponies, he went to have a chat with his friend the colonist.
"I am glad to see that you got back safely," the latter said. "Did your disguise pass you all right?"
"Admirably. I went straight into the middle of a commando at Fauresmith, and learnt all that there was to learn[Pg 91] without exciting the slightest suspicion. I hope you are doing well with your cattle."
"Excellently. I am getting a much better price for them than I could have obtained a month ago—more, indeed, than at the best of times; and I am told that all my heavy horses will be bought on good terms as remounts, but that the smaller ones are too light for this sort of work. I shall try and sell them to one of the Dutch farmers, but I can't expect to get much from them; in fact, I expect I shall almost have to give them away."
"Colonel Pinkerton has just made an arrangement by which you will get a fair price for twenty of them, if you have as many, for use by a score of Kaffirs who are at work under me as scouts. I don't suppose he will give you a high price for them; but at any rate he will pay you more than you would get from the Boers, who would know that you must take anything that they chose to offer."
"That is good news indeed. I am sure that I should not have got more than a pound a head for them, and they are worth from seven to ten pounds. If they will give me seven apiece all round I shall be delighted."
This was, indeed, the price that Yorke heard later in the day was paid for them.
On leaving Mr. Grimstone, Yorke went among the Kaffirs and picked out twenty active men, all of whom spoke Dutch. They had all been clothed in blue frocks and trousers, and when they had been handed over to him he was well pleased with their serviceable appearance; in the afternoon he obtained the ponies from the remount department. The Kaffirs were in the highest glee at exchanging hard labour for work of a kind most congenial to them. Saddles were not necessary, nor were there any to spare, but Yorke obtained a couple of hides from the commissariat and the natives cut them into strips, folded up their blankets and placed them on the ponies' backs, using bands of raw hide as saddle-girths.[Pg 92] With other strips they manufactured loops to act as stirrups, rough bridles, and reins.
"Now, Hans, I shall promote you to the position of sergeant," Yorke said that evening. "Your only duty will be to look after the fellows generally, to bargain with the farmers for food, and to see that the blacks obey orders when we are camping."
"Very well, Master Yorke, I will do my best. I shall be glad to be right away from this camp; the dust here is awful. And, having nothing to do while everyone else is at work, I quite long to be a Kaffir and do something."
"I did not know you were so fond of work, Hans."
"I didn't know that I was either," Hans said with a grin.
"But one could always sleep at the farm when there was nothing else to do; it is too hot in these canvas tents for that. And when everyone else is at work I do not like to be loitering about all day. Already three or four officers have asked me who I was and what duty I was employed on, and seemed to think that I had no right to be here, and that I was of no use."
"Well, we shall have plenty to do for the next month, and, I hope, beyond that."
The heat and dust were indeed terrible at De Aar. The weather was trying and changeable, the sun was intensely hot, and a bitterly cold wind often blew. Sometimes a dust-storm would burst over the camp, covering everything with a thick coat of red dust. This would be succeeded by a heavy thunder-shower.
The men drew their rations of flour the first thing in the morning, together with some bags of forage for the horses, and at seven o'clock Yorke and Hans mounted, and after ordering them to follow him four abreast, left the camp.
The Kaffirs needed no instruction from him in the art of scouting, it was born in their blood, and they had been taught as boys among their tribes, before they drifted away South as drivers of bullock-carts or in other capacities. Once[Pg 93] there, and liking the life of loafing vagabondage, with just enough work to keep them from starving, they had remained until high wages were offered, and their instinctive love of warfare tempted them to take service with the army. Two miles away they were halted, and Yorke, who had bought Baden-Powell's book on scouting at Cape Town and had studied it diligently, told them that they were now to separate, and were to practise scouting among the low hills in front.
"You must bear in mind," he said, "that the great object is to discover the presence and strength of an enemy and the direction in which they are approaching, without letting them know that they are observed. You must never show yourselves against the line on the top of the hill, as, were you to stand up with the sky behind you, you could be seen for a very long distance. Half of you will go to the right and half to the left. I shall stop here for an hour and watch you at work; then I shall move straight forward. When you see me do so you will descend from the hills and join me as I pass between them. Some of you may be too far off to meet me there, but you will see our tracks and will follow us till you overtake us. You had better remain here with me, Hans, and watch them at work."
"I take it," Hans said, when the natives had started, "that scouting for an enemy is the same sort of thing as crawling up to a herd of deer, except that the deer are a good deal sharper than the men; you can approach men from either side, while with deer you have not much chance to get near them unless the wind blows from them towards you."
"That is so, Hans. The Boers' eyesight is sharp enough, but they have not the power of smell. But if you were stalking them it would be best always to try to come up against the wind, for although they could not smell us, their horses might do so and show signs of uneasiness. Well, we have stalked a good many deer together, and I fancy it will help us a good deal with our work here."
[Pg 94]
Dismounting, he went with Hans on to an eminence and stood watching the Kaffirs through his field-glass. He saw that, as they passed the first small eminence, one man separated himself from the rest, rode up some distance, and then leaving the horse, ran up until nearly at the top, when he threw himself down and crawled forward with a zigzag movement, taking advantage of the cover of rocks and sage-bushes. The next hill was wider and longer, and two or three men turned off; beyond that he could not perceive their movements. The same thing was going on on the other flank.
"They will do splendidly," Yorke said, turning to Hans. "But when they start scouting in earnest, and want to get up anywhere near the Boers, they will have to take off those blue clothes of theirs; their own skin won't show as much on the sand and rocks as those clothes will."
After waiting for an hour they mounted and rode slowly forward. They were joined as they passed through a dip in the sand-hills by five men from one flank and four from the other; there was not time for those who had gone farther to get back. The party rode on slowly, and were gradually overtaken by the others. All reported that they saw no signs of the enemy. They were again sent forward to search hills to the front, those who had before gone to the farther hills this time taking those nearer. So the work continued all day, and in the afternoon they halted at a deserted farmhouse, where they passed the night, four Kaffirs being thrown out as patrols. Yorke had no fear of being surprised, but thought it as well to accustom the men to behave as if an enemy were near. For a week the work continued, being now carried on more in earnest, as they were near the river. As the colonel had suggested, their scouting was farther south than Yorke had before been.
"You know," he had said, "that there is no idea at present of their crossing the Orange River between Zoutpans Drift and Philippolis, so you had better watch the line between Seacow River at its junction with the Orange to Hanover, as[Pg 95] it is across this line that bands that had crossed at Bethulie Bridge or Norvals Pont into Cape Colony might advance west to cut the railway between De Aar and Richmond Road station."
The country was very hilly here, and the Kaffirs were divided into parties of two, each having his appointed station. One was always to remain at the look-out, the second to scout down to the river, and when required, to fetch provisions from the farmhouse, which served as Yorke's head-quarters.